An Elementary Study Of The Ethical Culture Of Shanxi Merchants

Shanxi merchants had existed for 500 years in china' s business circles from Ming dynasty to Qing dynasty.During its long development process, Shanxi merchants inherited and absorbed rich commercial experience rnd excellent traditional moral thought .On the base, they developed the ethical culture of Shanxi merchants , which is one of the Chinese precious moral heritages.The ethical culture of Shanxi merchants is far - reaching in significance and rich in content.lt is the moral principles and behavior criterions that regulate the interests between Shanxi merchants and others, distinguish between right and wrong, guide and restrict their behaviors in their commercial activities.Its primary principles include hardships and diligence, honesty and credit, well—gotten gains, patriotism and beneficence and so on.Though the ethical culture of Shanxi merchants has its historical limitation, its fundamental norms are helpful for modern economic activity.Today, it is common for enterprises to be not honest in their commercial activities. As a result, more and more people begin to realize the crisis of credit resulted from the immoral actions of many enterprises.So we should inherit the traditional moral thought so as to develop new economical ethics.In recent years, the academic circles has paid more attention on Shanxi merchants, and have achieved much in economics and history .To be regretful, few people think much of the ethical culture of Shanxi merchants .Consequently, I intend to analyze the fundamentals of the ethical culture of Shanxi merchants so that it can be used for references by modern merchants.The article will discuss the ethical culture of Shanxi merchants from the forming conditions , leading norms, historical limitations and modern significance.